1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to animal figures representing parent animal and their offspring, and more particularly, to a mother animal figure with means for simulating the delivery of an offspring animal figure.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 2,611,997 to Soloway et al disclosed a toy figure representing an adult kangaroo and a smaller toy figure representing a baby kangaroo disposed in an opening representing the pouch of the adult kangaroo. An ejector mechanism was provided which forceably ejected the baby kangaroo so as to create an appearance of a baby kangaroo jumping out of the pouch of its mother.
A similar toy animal apparatus is illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,651,881 to Glass, et al. In this patent there are also a toy figure which represents a mother kangaroo and which is capable of ejecting one or more objects, as for example objects representing baby kangaroos. Here again, the toy apparatus is designed to create an effect of a number of baby kangaroos jumping from their mother's pouch.
There has also been a commercially available toy animal figure in the form of a goat which is designed to simulate the eating of food objects. This goat is provided with a hollow animal body having an interior chamber and a conveyor means in the chamber which includes a continuous conveyor belt. The conveyor means is manually actuable by cranking a tail on the animal body for delivering the food objects which are introduced at a mouth on a head section of the animal figure to the interior of chamber of the animal figure. Further, an openable door on the side of the animal body could be manually opened by the user in order to remove the food objects from the interior chamber. This toy however, did not have any means for automatically delivering any object out of the body of the animal figure and the door had to be manually opened.
Applicants are not aware of any prior toy device which effectively represents a mother animal giving birth to an offspring, which not only is of significant play value, but is also highly educational for children.